Got it - my wife still experiences the slight vertigo from it off then.

I'd guess probably from the zoom in/out app launch/quit animations, and/or the zooming in icons when unlocking to the home screen. There's a good number of people that experience vertigo in 3d games as well, and I can see those effects having a similar, uh, effect.

I'd guess probably from the zoom in/out app launch/quit animations, and/or the zooming in icons when unlocking to the home screen. There's a good number of people that experience vertigo in 3d games as well, and I can see those effects having a similar, uh, effect.

Got it - my wife still experiences the slight vertigo from it off then.

I'd guess probably from the zoom in/out app launch/quit animations, and/or the zooming in icons when unlocking to the home screen. There's a good number of people that experience vertigo in 3d games as well, and I can see those effects having a similar, uh, effect.

I don't think the two are related. Windows since 98 gave me headaches due to the animations (which I always tone way down) and yet a 3D game doesn't have an effect on me. My cousin is the exact opposite

Some 3D games had a toggle, whether the point if view moved a little up & down when you walked. Some percent of users reacted poorly if it was set one way, while another reacted poorly for the opposite setting. It's generally only an issue on well done animations, sufficient to trick the brain.

Then the real issue is whether the price really is $10 or $37, because at $37 it will be twice as expensive as the competition, at $10 it will be about the same.

Either your math is wonky or I am missing something.

Intel's MSRP is $37 for Bay Trail.Snapdragon 600 is estimated to be $20, but this was nearly 5 months ago. $37 vs $20 is nearly 2x.

AllTek/RockChip/etc will price even lower, but I wouldn't expect it to be as powerful.

In the end, Bay Trail is competing against all of them (Exynos, Snapdragon, AX, etc), since in effect it's a zero sum game: If Apple sells an A7X, it isn't shipping an iPad with a Bay Trail part. If NVIDIA sells a Tegra 4, it's a Surface not shipping with Bay Trail, etc.

Ok--I get that $37 is 2x $20.

But I then wouldn't it be 1/2 the competition if it were $10 and they were $20?

Then the real issue is whether the price really is $10 or $37, because at $37 it will be twice as expensive as the competition, at $10 it will be about the same.

Either your math is wonky or I am missing something.

Intel's MSRP is $37 for Bay Trail.Snapdragon 600 is estimated to be $20, but this was nearly 5 months ago. $37 vs $20 is nearly 2x.

AllTek/RockChip/etc will price even lower, but I wouldn't expect it to be as powerful.

In the end, Bay Trail is competing against all of them (Exynos, Snapdragon, AX, etc), since in effect it's a zero sum game: If Apple sells an A7X, it isn't shipping an iPad with a Bay Trail part. If NVIDIA sells a Tegra 4, it's a Surface not shipping with Bay Trail, etc.

Ok--I get that $37 is 2x $20.

But I then wouldn't it be 1/2 the competition if it were $10 and they were $20?

But the competition goes as low as $10. The issue is that BT is competing against both high end and low end products (depending on clock speed and other bits Intel uses to differentiate their lineup).

The other issue is we don't know if it does drop to $10, since the listed prices is $37.

I first saw this mentioned in passing a few days ago but it looks like it may be a real issue for a few people.

Not me but I do think it's real. Need a setting to turn it off, or at least speed up as in iOS 6.

Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion

That only effects the parallax stuff, not the animations though.

I don't get motion sickness, but with ios7 Youtube app has slowed to a crawl, it will take minutes to download even a small vid, and it's definitely the iPad because a laptop sitting right next to it has no problems.

Frankly, Microsoft have only themselves to blame for letting Apple quietly remind people maybe they don't actually need Office all that much. They've had years to bring Office to iPad, and so far it hasn't happened because of Microsoft's bullshit fiefdom dramatics. Attempting to blame Apple for that is more than a little tragic.

But yeah, that's right, Microsoft. Apple are playing "catchup" with you. EVERYTHING IS FINE, KEEP ON TRUCKIN'.

Frankly, Microsoft have only themselves to blame for letting Apple quietly remind people maybe they don't actually need Office all that much. They've had years to bring Office to iPad, and so far it hasn't happened because of Microsoft's bullshit fiefdom dramatics. Attempting to blame Apple for that is more than a little tragic.

But yeah, that's right, Microsoft. Apple are playing "catchup" with you. EVERYTHING IS FINE, KEEP ON TRUCKIN'.

From Franks Shaw's post:

"Note: If you are the TL;DR type, let me cut to the chase. Surface and Surface 2 both include Office, the world’s most popular, most powerful productivity software for free and are priced below both the iPad 2 and iPad Air respectively."

So is Microsoft now providing the full version of Office with Surface (RT and x86), without the previous restrictions imposed by the Office Home/Student version? I.e this can be used for business purposes without violating the licensing agreement?

Frankly, Microsoft have only themselves to blame for letting Apple quietly remind people maybe they don't actually need Office all that much. They've had years to bring Office to iPad, and so far it hasn't happened because of Microsoft's bullshit fiefdom dramatics. Attempting to blame Apple for that is more than a little tragic.

But yeah, that's right, Microsoft. Apple are playing "catchup" with you. EVERYTHING IS FINE, KEEP ON TRUCKIN'.

I think your post would be more valid if it wasn't for the fact that Office sales are still strong as well as the fact that Office 365 is already on a 1.5 billion dollar run rate.

So when it comes to Office Suites, I think it takes a Herculean leap of fantasy to claim that Apple are leading. Not that you said that, but that's the opposite of "catching up" no?

I think your post would be more valid if it wasn't for the fact that Office sales are still strong as well as the fact that Office 365 is already on a 1.5 billion dollar run rate.

So when it comes to Office Suites, I think it takes a Herculean leap of fantasy to claim that Apple are leading. Not that you said that, but that's the opposite of "catching up" no?

I think, like in so many other things, Microsoft completely misses Apple's intentions with iWork. Of course, people could be using Office 365 on iPads too if they wanted, the only thing that prevents that is Microsoft's utter dysfunctionality.

So the argument seems to be: Microsoft is dysfunctional -> No office on iPads -> everyone wants Surface because spreadsheets -> iPad is playing catchup to Surface.

I think your post would be more valid if it wasn't for the fact that Office sales are still strong as well as the fact that Office 365 is already on a 1.5 billion dollar run rate.

So when it comes to Office Suites, I think it takes a Herculean leap of fantasy to claim that Apple are leading. Not that you said that, but that's the opposite of "catching up" no?

I think, like in so many other things, Microsoft completely misses Apple's intentions with iWork. Of course, people could be using Office 365 on iPads too if they wanted, the only thing that prevents that is Microsoft's utter dysfunctionality.

So the argument seems to be: Microsoft is dysfunctional -> No office on iPads -> everyone wants Surface because spreadsheets -> iPad is playing catchup to Surface.

Yeah, I do agree that they need to take the threat seriously. But truth be told, I don't know why the fixation on Office. Shouldn't Apple first get past the guy in 2nd place first? Google Docs.

Anyone thinking that Apple were going to try to turn iWork into an Office-killer was delusional. In fact, the new Mavericks versions have been substantially pared back, like the iPad versions.

iWork is clearly and distinctly aimed at the casual market. The danger for Microsoft is that their continued absence from iPads will allow many people to discover that's really all they ever wanted.

It's an interesting question. iWork has been revamped to match and integrate with the rather decent online version on iCloud.com, so they finally have a cross-platform(ish) Office solution, a long overdue and necessary component. Also the integration across iOS, online, and Macs seems to be much improved. It's very much Office "lite" for sure, but far more flexible than before. If your Office needs aren't unusually particular or demanding it seems rather usable.

At the very least, this version seems to provide a better platform for improvement going forward for Apple, should Microsoft lag behind on bringing Office to the iPad, as well as keeping them on their toes wrt pricing.

Seems ever more clear that Apple's strategy vs Android is by shifting to the high-end of the market. Android + maturation has sufficiently commodisized the market that Apple can no longer compete on price, at least with the margins they want. The dream (of some) of iPod-like total domination and marketshare is over (not that that dream was ever very realistic). They are moving closer to the strategy used with the Mac—albeit far more successful than the Mac ever was, or will be.

Part of this is probably just transitional, while the retina mini is in reportedly extremely low supply, but the $170 (!) gap between the retina mini and the Nexus 7 and Fire HDX is pretty striking. Sure, Apple is soaking the early adopters/fan base while supply is short (and upselling the Air), but that's still quite a substantial gap.

Yeah the Nexus 7 is something I was considering but it doesn't support as many LTE bands as I want. Otherwise, I'd have to get the European version for 349 Euros, which is closer to what an LTE Mini would cost. Maybe next year.

The Fire HDX sounds great on paper but it has no ecosystem and with the cloud browser thing, what is the point of the specs?

Frankly, Microsoft have only themselves to blame for letting Apple quietly remind people maybe they don't actually need Office all that much.

People have been "reminded" of this for thirty years. So far, it has meant bupkiss. I gave up on this argument a long time ago. The "works" suite era should have told consumers the same thing. It didn't.

It's still possible to go broke betting against office.

When we see iPads really replacing PCs rather than just displacing them and stetching out the replacement cycle, then we can talk.

Right now, I don't see it.

As long as PCs sell in any quantity whatever, there will be Office. That's the norm so far.

I think what's more likely to replace Office is. . .nothing. Perhaps we'll reach a state where it's all about email and Facebook. Maybe a little Google Docs spreadsheet for someone's fantasy football league here and there.

I think people forget that Office is actually very, very good. Yes, it completely owns the corporate market, and there is a would be a huge amount of inertia to overcome to displace it. But displacing it would also require something to actually be better than it, and nothing is.

Either something needs to come along that does something unique and valuable or the nature of running a large enterprise needs to change in some fundamental way. Otherwise I think Office is here to stay forever.

Yeah but maybe consumer sales of Office decline, if people are using tablets more

Unless you're writing books, a person using Word at home is writing resumes and cover letters. There are nice templates for those in the Office ecosystem but it's still overkill for those tasks, especially if people still bother to print out resumes these days.

There's definitely a need for spreadsheets but they don't need to have features of Excel. Recently I went looking for various types of templates for tracking remodeling costs and financial assets. Predictably, most of them are in XLS format and my old version of Numbers didn't import some of the more complicated financial templates very well. Google Docs wasn't perfect either but both were workable.

So the XLS templates got me over 85% of the way there between Numbers and GD. Of course both are in the cloud so I can view and edit the documents across all the devices.

No need to get Office, though if I could have used Office365 for a month and saved and edited the document and quit after a month but still end up with a good spreadsheet document, I might have explored that option.

Now if I'm running a small business and I had to exchange office documents with clients or suppliers all the time, I might have approached things differently.

But I still don't understand why even someone who uses Office at work all the time would shell out the money for home use, when there are "good enough" free or cheap alternatives out there, with maybe even better support for multitouch (until Office with multitouch support is completed).

But I still don't understand why even someone who uses Office at work all the time would shell out the money for home use, when there are "good enough" free or cheap alternatives out there, with maybe even better support for multitouch (until Office with multitouch support is completed).

I've never understood it. But, when something persists for three decades, maybe you just learn to accept it. That's what I've done with this one.

Part of it is that the "Home and Student" versions aren't that expensive and probably exist to backstop the enterprise and still pull in a few bucks. Keep 'em on Office at home and nobody strays at work? Cut down on piracy?

Whatever they're doing, it has worked for a long time. This is one thing MS still gets right.

Because it just isn't that expensive. It's $100ish for the limited version and all their knowledge translates over. It's the least intimidating option for a small upfront cash outlay. Also, many businesses get their employees discounted rates based on the volume of corporate licenses they buy. I paid $10 for full (if EULA-limited) Office.

I've never understood it. But, when something persists for three decades, maybe you just learn to accept it. That's what I've done with this one.

Office persists for many of the same reasons that Windows persists: everybody has it, so you need to have it because everybody has it. It's the de-facto standard.

Office has also been around forever and has the most features. It's always going to be an uphill battle competing against that, which is why most competitors stopped trying years ago. It's more of a mindset thing than anything else. Who wants to think long and hard about what office productivity software to use? You just get Office, it's not that expensive, and you're done. Even if you never use 90% of the features, it's comforting to know that they are there. (This is the same reason computer books were always so ridiculously big-- people wanted the biggest one because they figured any answer they needed would be in there, even if they would never read it all). There's also the Joel Spolsky effect of everyone using a slightly different 10%. Hardly anyone uses, say, pivot tables, but for that one person they are a godsend.

What's changing with the rise of the iPad is that people are realizing that they don't necessarily need Office. Word, in particular, is trapped in a very 1990s mindset where people would write a document, then print out a document, then hand the printout to someone who reads it. People don't work that way any more, especially young people. Most of the things that used to be sent in Word documents can be done better over email, or IM, or wikis. And well Excel is nice, most people just use it for making lists, and there are much better tools for that sort of thing. The less said about PowerPoint, the better.

But there is comfort in using Office. It's dull, but comforting. It will always be there. It will always be the standard.

What's changing with the rise of the iPad is that people are realizing that they don't necessarily need Office. Word, in particular, is trapped in a very 1990s mindset where people would write a document, then print out a document

I've been pushing very hard to get my company to abandon Word for anything other than client deliverables, and use OneNote/SharePoint for all our internal and collaborative work for essentially this reason. We're very slowly getting there, now that people are starting to realize there is no such thing as "losing a OneNote" in this setup, and everyone can directly work on the same set of notes at the same time.

What's changing with the rise of the iPad is that people are realizing that they don't necessarily need Office. Word, in particular, is trapped in a very 1990s mindset where people would write a document, then print out a document

I've been pushing very hard to get my company to abandon Word for anything other than client deliverables, and use OneNote/SharePoint for all our internal and collaborative work for essentially this reason. We're very slowly getting there, now that people are starting to realize there is no such thing as "losing a OneNote" in this setup, and everyone can directly work on the same set of notes at the same time.

I'm a huge OneNote/SharePoint guy myself. Seriously a godsend in a law firm once people start taking advantage of it. The one thing I've been lacking is a way to take quick notes on stuff-- it's continuously faster to print the document, make hand-written notes, and then have someone fill in the required section, et cetera, rather than going in and leaving comments (and nobody who has ever needed to use the legal redline compare and merge feature would suggest that email is a serious replacement)

FWIW, I picked up a Surface Pro 2 the other day and... holy god, I can view the documents in word and use the pen mode to leave hand-written comments and highlight stuff... all while using the software that my office uses and without having to print to put notes and highlighter on. It is the holy grail of what I do-- the ability to take my work, do it the way I'm used to, without needing multiple devices, and obviating a lot of printing.

People who don't use office extensively will never understand why so many people use it. Those who do recognize that, like hopping into Google services, it's a matter of it being simple (while offering powerful features), the various services playing with each other extremely well, and the fact that everyone you know uses it.

Office is going to be around for a while because nobody touches it yet. And even when they do, it's going to take years to derail the traction MS has.

Because it just isn't that expensive. It's $100ish for the limited version and all their knowledge translates over. It's the least intimidating option for a small upfront cash outlay. Also, many businesses get their employees discounted rates based on the volume of corporate licenses they buy. I paid $10 for full (if EULA-limited) Office.

I paid $120 for a 3 license pack for Office 2010. That was 2-3 years ago. ~$10/computer/year isn't that much. Especially when that means I don't have to learn anything new, have ZERO compatibility issues, can do work at home, etc....that is not bad.

People who don't use office extensively will never understand why so many people use it.

Oh, I "get" its enterprise success. What I don't get is why they do the same thing at home. It's not really necessary. Moreover, people have mastered at least one entirely different operating system now in most cases. So, familiarity alone can no longer explain it.

I think we have to conclude that it is so good, that it is preferable even for Fantasy Football stats keeping as long as the price is around 50 bucks per PC, which is what I last paid (3 licenses for 150 and we installed all 3).

What I don't get is why they do the same thing at home. It's not really necessary.

I know this is just me, but my wife and I use OneNote and SkyDrive to share a household note book that includes grocery lists, big budget items we need to look out for, and the ever-(un)popular "honey do" list. While this specific functionality could be replicated in Evernote, OneNote is more tightly integrated into our devices, since we have Office everywhere.

What I don't get is why they do the same thing at home. It's not really necessary.

I know this is just me, but my wife and I use OneNote and SkyDrive to share a household note book that includes grocery lists, big budget items we need to look out for, and the ever-(un)popular "honey do" list. While this specific functionality could be replicated in Evernote, OneNote is more tightly integrated into our devices, since we have Office everywhere.

Our family does the same using the iOS equivalent "Reminders" and "Calendar" apps along with iCloud.

Both of which also synch across our Mac, iPads, and iPhones. Even Notes get synched, but we don't use that as much since Notes doesn't have alerts or reminders.

None of which requires Office or Evernote. The flip side being, of course, that Macs, iPads, and iPhones cost more than a PC, a Windows Phone, or a Windows tablet, which maybe justifies the cost of Office at that point.

What I don't get is why they do the same thing at home. It's not really necessary.

I know this is just me, but my wife and I use OneNote and SkyDrive to share a household note book that includes grocery lists, big budget items we need to look out for, and the ever-(un)popular "honey do" list. While this specific functionality could be replicated in Evernote, OneNote is more tightly integrated into our devices, since we have Office everywhere.

Our family does the same using the iOS equivalent "Reminders" and "Calendar" apps along with iCloud.

Both of which also synch across our Mac, iPads, and iPhones. Even Notes get synched, but we don't use that as much since Notes doesn't have alerts or reminders.

None of which requires Office or Evernote. The flip side being, of course, that Macs, iPads, and iPhones cost more than a PC, a Windows Phone, or a Windows tablet, which maybe justifies the cost of Office at that point.

The bigger point to your "flip side" requires lock-in to a single manufacturer.

You wouldn't care, as you love said manufacturer - but in a family where people don't care as deeply or share that common connection to one supplier - the other options including Office 365 and Evernote are fantastic.

I think people forget that Office is actually very, very good. Yes, it completely owns the corporate market, and there is a would be a huge amount of inertia to overcome to displace it. But displacing it would also require something to actually be better than it, and nothing is.

Either something needs to come along that does something unique and valuable or the nature of running a large enterprise needs to change in some fundamental way. Otherwise I think Office is here to stay forever.

This actually sums up a lot of Microsoft products in the corporate space, like Exchange and Active Directory. Everything else is nowhere near as good and lots of companies (Corel, Novell, etc.) went belly-up trying to make a better product. This is why both Google and Apple are dancing around the corporate space Microsoft owns.